After two days of questions, answers and a few dismissals, four men and four women were chosen Wednesday to serve as the jury in the trial of Wichita abortionist Dr. George Tiller.

Tiller is charged with 19 misdemeanor counts of performing late-term abortions after obtaining a required second opinion from a doctor with whom he had an improper legal or financial affiliation.

Because the charges are misdemeanors, only six jurors will render a verdict. Two alternates will also hear the evidence. The alternates will be chosen at the end of the trial, as per normal procedure, to assure their full attention.

Those chosen will come under unusual scrutiny for jurors in a misdemeanor case. Tiller is a lightning rod for the most divisive issue in America, and pro-life Kansans believe he represents the excesses of a state abortion policy that seems to operate without the enforcement of statutory restraints.

The jurors ranged from a T-shirted man who looked to be in his early 20s to a gray-haired man several years into his retirement. Among those dismissed from serving on the jury were two men who had expressed negative opinions on their questionnaires about former Attorneys General Phill Kline and Paul Morrison, both of whom had earlier been involved in the case, as well as another man who had admitted that he would be facing pressure from his mostly Catholic suburban town to vote guilty.

Attorneys on both sides of the case had made their “strikes” on paper and out of view, leading to a brief court session

After  quickly announcing which members of the two 15-member pools had been selected, Sedgwick County District Court Judge Clark Owens urged the media and others in the audience not to reveal the names of the jurors or to contact anyone involved in the case - a routine admonishment in trials attracting public attention.

Today's session was attended by Operation Rescue leader Rev. Patrick J. Mahoney and a few local pro-life activists, along with several of their visibly bored children.

Few reporters have been in attendance during the jury selection phase, and only a handful of protesters have gathered outside, but more of both are expected when the trial begins Monday morning at the Sedgwick County Courthouse. 

- Bud Norman

The Week in Review